Activists take action “In Defence of Ancient Forests”

26.01.2009
Today, pro­test­ers climbed trees and hung ban­ners in front of the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don to raise aware­ness of the con­tin­ued log­ging of Australia’s old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests. An emer­gency report com­piled by envi­ron­men­tal and protest groups in Tas­ma­nia was deliv­ered detail­ing the dev­as­ta­tion of pub­lic forests at the hands of wood­chip com­pa­ny Gunns Ltd. The com­pa­ny pro­pose more than 10km of log­ging roads to access 12 log­ging ‘coupes’ all of which con­tain irre­place­able ecosys­tems and some of the tallest trees on the plan­et.

Australian wilderness protest at Embassy26.01.2009
Today, pro­test­ers climbed trees and hung ban­ners in front of the Aus­tralian High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don to raise aware­ness of the con­tin­ued log­ging of Australia’s old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests. An emer­gency report com­piled by envi­ron­men­tal and protest groups in Tas­ma­nia was deliv­ered detail­ing the dev­as­ta­tion of pub­lic forests at the hands of wood­chip com­pa­ny Gunns Ltd. The com­pa­ny pro­pose more than 10km of log­ging roads to access 12 log­ging ‘coupes’ all of which con­tain irre­place­able ecosys­tems and some of the tallest trees on the plan­et.

Last Mon­day, con­cerned mem­bers of the British pub­lic deliv­ered a peti­tion with 936 names to the embassy ask­ing for an imme­di­ate halt to log­ging old growth for­est in Tas­ma­nia.
The protest is moti­vat­ed by the evic­tion of the long stand­ing protest camp in the Upper Flo­ren­tine val­ley in Tas­ma­nia. To date 30 pro­test­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers act­ing in the defence of the protest camp have been arrest­ed.

“We have gained sup­port from the Rt Hon Nor­man Bak­er MP, who is in the process of tabling an ear­ly day motion in Par­lia­ment express­ing con­cern about the extent of log­ging in the Upper Flo­ren­tine val­ley in Tas­ma­nia” said for­est cam­paign­er Phil Neale.

In July, fol­low­ing a meet­ing in Que­bec, The World Her­itage Com­mit­tee request­ed the State Par­ty to con­sid­er an “exten­sion of the prop­er­ty to include appro­pri­ate areas of tall euca­lypt for­est”, once more high­light­ing this issue as being an inter­na­tion­al con­cern.
This request has reit­er­at­ed inter­na­tion­al con­cerns with the con­tin­ued destruc­tion of Tas­ma­ni­a’s ancient forests.

“We are call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Rudd and Pre­mier Bartlett to heed the advice of the IUCN now and place an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on log­ging in the glob­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant forests of the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine” — Ula Majew­s­ki spokesper­son for grass roots cam­paign group ‘Still Wild, Still Threat­ened’.

There where unnec­es­sary amounts of police in the area but no arrests.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it www.huon.org and www.stillwildstillthreatened.org